Anonymous Plays Peacekeeper in Southeast Asian Standoff

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Anonymous is known for its antagonizing antics, but this week one
member of the hacktivist organization found himself playing
mediator in an online dispute between patriotic Malaysian and
Filipino hackers that mirrors a real-life war on the Pacific
island of Borneo.

The war, a territorial dispute between the government of Malaysia
and some 200 Filipinos who claim part of Malaysian Borneo in the
name of the former Sultanate of Sulu, began last month.

Around 30 people have been killed, and today (March 5), Malaysian
military jets were bombing the invading Filipinos. Former Muslim
rebels from the southern Philippines have promised to join the
fight.

The government of the Philippines maintains its claims to parts
of Borneo, but has not endorsed the invasion and has called for
an end to the conflict.

The fighting has spilled onto the Internet in a series of
hacking attacks across the Sulu Sea. The
most serious, carried out by a group identified as the
MALAYSIA Cyb3r 4rmy, took place Sunday and knocked out several
Filipino business websites, including that of communications
company Globe Telecom.

Several Malaysian sites were then hacked by a group calling
itself Anonymous Philippines, which demanded that Malaysia "Stop
attacking our cyberspace! Or else we will attack your
cyberworld!"

Despite the Filipino group's self-proclaimed affiliation with
Anonymous, a hacktivist called TheAnonCause, who apparently
has more online street credibility and claims to speak for
Anonymous as a whole, took to Pastebin to clarify that the
movement had not chosen one side or the other.

"As far as we are concerned, Anonymous has nowhere to side yet
over this concern," TheAnonCause said in his Pastebin post.

Instead of staying out of the matter, TheAnonCause asked both
sides to produce official documents to back up their territorial
claims.

"We can study the historical nature of this dispute and we would
be able to determine the strength of the claim, and if tyranny is
clouding this matter so we can take a united action as needed,"
TheAnonCause wrote.

"If governments try to hide information that [is] vital to
peaceful resolution, and seeks to bend information to gain
leverage over the other, then that would be the perfect time that
we will need to step in ... and leak the truth out in the open
for both countries to see, and for the whole world to see."

Based on this post, Anonymous appears to be interested in keeping
the peace and hasn't picked allegiances. But that doesn't mean it
won't in the future.